China bird flu scare: ‘My family and I don’t dare to eat anything these days’

China bird flu crisis – a child waits as her mother buys vegetables near the closed poultry section at the Huhuai market where the H7N9 bird flu was detected, in Shanghai, China. Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/AP

Among the bustle of morning trade at Yanqing food market, one corner remains quiet. Wedged between the beef and fish counters, where traders in galoshes cheerily hack the heads off wriggling carp, the poultry stalls are boarded, their freezers taped shut. A handwritten notice from the management offers: “All chicken products have stopped being sold, sorry for any inconvenience.”

As the death toll from H7N9 avian flu rises, public concern over health and food safety is growing too. The full impact on China‘s massive poultry sector is yet to be realised, but early indications point to widespread damage. Qiu Baoqin, of the National Poultry Industry Association, told AFP that H7N9 had been a “devastating blow”.

There are 33 cases of H7N9 in Shanghai and its neighbouring provinces with nine fatalities. Microbiologists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences attribute the strain to a mingling of viruses from migrating birds with those found in chickens, pigeons and ducks in the Yangtze river delta.

In sample tests from fowl markets, 34 have proved positive for H7N9. The cities of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing have shut live poultry markets, culling hundreds of thousands of birds in an attempt to curb the spread.

Last year China produced more than 18m tonnes of poultry, over 20% of its total meat output, according to the statistics bureau. But as markets opened after the national Qingming holiday shares in companies tied to the industry tumbled – Shandong Minhe Animal Husbandry, a poultry producer, lost 9.5% on 8 April.

In Shanghai, some schools have stopped serving chicken. McDonald’s slashed the price of its McNugget meal from 36 yuan (£3.60) to 20 yuan (£2).

In a tea house in Ninghai, a county in Zhejiang province 180 miles from Shanghai, Tu Youjin counts himself as a victim of H7N9. Tu’s company, Ningbo Zhenning Poultry Breeding Limited, is a co-operative working with 150 farms in the region. It supplies Shanghai and other cities with 4m chickens a year. (Shanghai consumes 130m birds annually, mostly imported from Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang, provinces where H7N9 has been found in people.)

Local officials have found no trace of flu among his fowl, but sales have dropped off a cliff. Normally, the farm sells 10,000 chickens a day, but now they are selling fewer than a dozen, he said.

“We can’t even sell our eggs,” said Tu. “I’m under great pressure as my company makes up the farmers’ losses, most of them are elderly peasants. The government has shown concern but we haven’t had any compensation so far.”

Chinese consumers are eating more meat every year – demand for chicken rose 18% in urban households between 2005 and 2011 – food scares affect consumer habits. Prices of meat and associated products rose by 2.9% on average in March, according to the statistics bureau. But pork fell by 5.5%, a slump attributed to the pigs in the river.

“In 2004, when H5N1 hit the market, it needed months to recover,” said Feng Zijian, vice director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. “The impact of H7N9 will continue to be felt in the upcoming period. We just don’t know how long this bird flu will last.”